


May Contain Nuts

by Laurie



Category: Tenet (2020)
Genre: Angst, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, The Protagonist has a name, The Protagonist needs a hug, can you believe I hated Robert Pattinson before this movie?, neil needs a hug, of course it's angst I can't write anything else, part angst part fluff and a dash of porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:55:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26553208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurie/pseuds/Laurie
Summary: Like everything powerful, time is a weapon.
Relationships: Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)
Comments: 98
Kudos: 406





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm kind of surprised this fandom is as small as it currently is, especially if you go comparing it to another masterpiece of Nolan that is Inception, which had hundreds of stories within weeks of its release in cinema. Oh well.  
> I've watched the film for the second time today, and I was ecstatic. Hence the following vomiting of words put together that you can all enjoy below.  
> And to think that I couldn't stand the sight of Robert Pattinson up until I saw him in Tenet! But then, he wasn't a very convincing vampire, at least his sparkling never inspired me :D  
> Anyway, this will be a story in three parts. The rest will up in jiffy, I promise! Also, beware: this may contain vomit-inducing amount of angst, because I'm a kind of writer who is unable to write literally anything else - that is to say, a shitty one. If you're not up to reading 15-something K words of pure unadulterated angst with a side dish of smut for a spice, don't read it, it'll just be painful for you.  
> Finally, I've given The Protagonist a name, because it's fanfiction and I can do whatever the hell I want :) Also, calling him 'the protagonist' for 30-something Word pages is just tiresome. Who no one minds.  
> Cheers! Hope you'll enjoy!

It’s a miserable cold rainy Thursday the first time John sees him – _again_ – and in spite of the weather, Neil is bubbly, and happy, and charming.

And so, so alive.

John finds him at the pub closest to the Oxford Science campus and for the first few minutes of his heart galloping thunderously in his chest, just stares, and stares, and stares. Neil is younger – of course, he is – in his mid-twenties, maybe, and there’s this air of wonder and excitement about him, like he can’t believe he’s there in that pub, can’t believe he’s talking to those people, can’t believe they’re listening to him. Like he can’t believe the world around him is so amazingly bright and colourful, and he gets to live in it, be a part of it.

_For now_

John shakes his pounding head, takes a sip of his diet coke – if only for something to do with his ever-so-slightly shaking hands, drinks in the sight of this Neil – young, bright, the whole world at the tips of his fingers. He’s getting shivery and realizes his coat has soaked through with the heavy rain outside, but he’s not sure his trembling insides have anything to do with his wet clothes rather than his unsteady nerves.

At the moment he experiences the strongest sense of contradiction: he wants to come up to Neil more than anything he’s wanted in a very long time; at the same time, he wishes he were anywhere else, _anywhen_ else, and if he never has to see this Neil again, it’d be a tad too soon.

But it’s inevitable, isn’t it? Whatever happened, happened. In a broader sense, whatever he’s going to decide this moment will not change the cosmic events that will unfold, that have already unfolded. If he doesn’t do it now – should he decide to cowardly run and hide from the unnerving sight of a younger, less knowledgeable Neil – the universe will just make sure he’ll have to do it another time instead. There’s no running from this. Wherever you go, there you are. John learned to make concessions a long time ago.

The realization makes it both easier and harder at the same time. John is at the verge of puking his guts out with the overwhelming contradiction of the feeling.

Exhaling hard, like he has to hold his breath for minutes long all over again, he sets his glass down at the bar and waits. He ought not to bring any more attention to himself by coming up to Neil in the middle of whatever gleeful discussion of particles or atoms Neil seems to be having with his group of friends. He’s going to wait for Neil to come to the bar, at least, should he expect some modicum of privacy.

He doesn’t have to wait long. Neil stumbles to the bar ungraciously, knocking over a lady’s purse from the bar stool, making the lady glare up at him in annoyance. Her glare, though, turns to an appraising look as soon as her eyes glaze over Neil. She turns around fully, abandoning her friend, and visibly tries to make herself look more appealing, lips curving, shoulders straightening. Yes, Neil’s always tended to have this effect on people. Before she can distract Neil – already busy, apologizing to her profusely – by hitting on him, John gathers all of his courage and interjects.

“You always this smooth, or it’s just a new pick-up technique I’m not aware of?” he blurts out and cringes inwardly.

He's still a damn good agent. Better than he's ever been, faster and sharper, working alone with an unearthly precision. Sometimes he goes a little overboard, rips something to shreds, goes ten extra steps when he could do with one, but if it keeps him from going mad with double-thinking, triple-thinking – overthinking and over doubting – everything he does, he figures he can live with that. Neil, though… Neil brings out this strange something in him – the blonde bastard – something raw and deep and fragile, something John is not sure how to deal with.

“Pardon?” Neil says, turning to him fully – ever the polite lad. John barely hears him, desperately holding his mouth shut lest he gape at the sight of this new Neil who is twenty-something, red-cheeked and bright-eyed, blonde hair a familiar mess. This Neil who is softer around the face, thinner and lankier, who is sporting a five o’clock shadow on his chin, as though he had far more important and exciting things to do rather than something so trivial as keeping up with his physical appearance, something so boring and uneventful as shaving. He is looking at John with polite interest, his hand with an empty glass outstretched absentmindedly across the bar. “Oh, yeah, I suppose I can get a little… uncoordinated when I have a drink, sorry about that,” he adds with a little self-deprecating chuckle. “I hope I didn’t knock you over there.”

“I’d forgive you, if you did,” John says pleasantly, knuckles going white around the forgotten glass in his own hand. “I guess we all need to relax and get a little… uncoordinated from time to time.”

“Naturally,” Neil agrees with a little smirk. “I suppose that’s why you’re drinking _diet coke_ – to get uncoordinated.”

Cheeky little bastard. John huffs out a surprised laugh. Neil’s attention to detail has, apparently, been an innate quality of his.

“Yes, well, I don’t drink on the job,” he admits with the air of a man confiding something important. He really ought to get this conversation going.

“I figured you weren’t a student here,” Neil says, one eyebrow going up and hiding behind the messy blond fringe.

“How so?” John indulges, feeling a bit more in control of the conversation.

“Your suit’s a tad out a general student’s league, for starters,” Neil says, gesturing at the entirety of John, seemingly having forgotten about the empty glass in his hand. “Not to mention the fact that your age points to you rather being a professor than a student here. And since I haven’t seen you around on campus – professor or otherwise – I hence deduct… well, um, I suppose, I can only deduct you have no job and/or coursework in the university…” Neil trails off, looking generally embarrassed. He must have had more than he thought. “And I certainly would’ve remembered if I’d seen you on campus,” he then adds for a reason John will have to think about later.

“Brilliant deduction, Sherlock,” he teases and then briefly wonders what it is about Neil that’s never ceased to put him at such ease. He feels like he knows this man already, the familiarity of their conversation spreading within his body like warm liquid.

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t know this Neil, and this Neil doesn’t know him. He doesn’t know anything, anything at all. Yet.

“What’s your job, then?” Neil asks quickly, probably to cover up for his earlier babbling. He is completely focused on John now, like there’s no one else in the pub besides them, like his friends are not waiting for him back at their booth, like the girl behind him isn’t sending him pointed looks – more desperate by the minute. John finds this sort of knife-sharp attention intoxicating.

“Probably too complicated to understand without a physics degree,” John says casually, and he knows what’s coming next.

“Lucky me, then!” Neil grins and drops himself at the nearest barstool. “I’m just finishing my masters in quantum and statistical mechanics!”

“You don’t say,” John says, really enjoying himself. Neil’s eagerness is adorable. “As it happens, I’m actually looking to employ a physicist at the moment.”

“Let’s hear it!” Neil exclaims a little too eagerly and maybe a tad too joyfully, causing the girl behind him to throw him a look full of missed opportunities.

“What a lovely coincidence that I’ve run into you,” John says, feeling his lips pull into a smile on their own accord.

“It is, isn’t it?” Neil laughs, hands flying around excitedly, “but then, the mathematician in me is not so sure about that, I mean, we’re in an Oxford Science student pub, the probability of running into someone with a physics degree here is, well… You’d be much more hard-pressed to find someone in gender studies here, rather then –”

“Tell you what,” John cuts in, interrupting another babbling fit Neil is about to launch into. “Coincidence or not, let’s toast to it, and then I’ll tell you all about the position I’m looking to fill.”

“Nothing like a diet coke to celebrate,” Neil smirks and looks down at his own glass with a look of great surprise to find it empty. “Ah, let me just get my drink –“

“Oh, allow me,” John says, signaling the bartender. He just can’t help himself, it seems, to stay professional around this happy tipsy Neil. One little trick won’t hurt. “One more diet coke,” he tells the bartender, and then: “and a vodka tonic, please.”

“Wow,” Neil says, eyebrows all the way up to his hairline. “Don’t tell me you’re some kind of spy, because that was freaky.”

“I won’t, then,” Johns allows, clicking his glass with Neil’s. “Just try and keep up.”

The storm outside comes and goes. They end up talking all night.

And that’s that.

***

Neil is brilliant. It’s a fact as indisputable as that the sky is blue and water is wet. John wonders at his brilliance the same way he wonders how he managed to never really notice it before.

Neil picks things up so fast you would think he were studying Peppa Pig episodes instead of theories and concepts so complex they would’ve given Einstein a run for his money. Like a plant in a direct sunlight, Neil finally finds himself in an environment that allows him to grow, and so he does in geometrical progression day by day. He loves the work. He loves the training. He yearns for challenges.

And John is willing to provide.

And then at night, when he finds himself in yet another hotel room, surrounded by typical blank furniture and décor, so devoid of character as it is of any aesthetical pleasure, his mind keeps replaying the scene in a ruined little Siberian town.

_For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship_

As he lays in bed, willing his brain to shut off, willing his mind to let go, he sees the tall figure, dark silhouette against the merciless sun, the image burned to the inside of his eyelids.

_Who hired you?_

_You did_

And then there would be something wet running down his cheeks, his nose, his chin. Without opening his eyes, he would turn and stick his wet face into the pillow, willing his eyes to dry up and his hammering heart to stop. He would lay for hours on end, staring up at the empty ceiling, on the edge of reality and dreams – nightmares – and only then would he allow himself a moment of actual grief for the person who appeared in his life with the force of a sledgehammer, broke him apart and reassembled him anew.

Only in those moment would he allow himself to truly acknowledge how much he misses that other, old, _his_ Neil. A small concession he would be willing to make in the darkness of the night. John learned to make concessions a long time ago.

At night, where no one can see him, he would mourn.

And the guilt would choke him, until he can’t breathe.

***

“Hey, _you!_ ” Neil calls extravagantly across the room, making everyone else turn to look at him questioningly. John looks up from the papers he’s been studying intently. Neil is looking at him with an impudent expression, eyebrows high, brash smirk in place.

“Are you talking to me?” John hisses, eyes narrowed.

“If only there was a way to tell who I’m addressing,” Neil says with an exaggerated frown. “Oh, I don’t know, like maybe a person’s _name?_ ”

And suddenly John’s pulse is racketing. He knows where this is going, has been sort of expecting it for a while now, and he hates it still.

Of course, Neil wants his name. Of course, Neil, being this deeply kind and gentle and generally sweet person, would want to get to know him, to be friends with him even.

_For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship_

_Stop it_ , John tells himself, willing the voice in his head to disappear. _Stop it._

Sure, his Neil said before that they would be friends once. Sure, he said, they’d have years of friendship and of getting up to stuff. He said lots of things. Too much and, by god, not enough.

John knows what he’s supposed to do, how he’s supposed to act, and he’sa good liar when the stakes are high, always been the best when put under pressure. He would have thought to be prepared for this, would have known how to behave, would have found natural excuses to keep this what it ought to be.

But he’s only fucking human.

“I have two names, as you’re well aware,” he grits out through his teeth. “ _Yes, sir_ and _No, sir._ Perfectly legit first and last names, as far as you are concerned.”

And there it is, the hurt look on that painfully familiar face.

_The end of a beautiful friendship_

Stop it. Stop it.

He never asked his Neil if he’d actually known his real name, never even thought to until it was too late. It never even occurred to him at the time, as something worth thinking about, worth checking, since his name – along with the rest of his identity and personality – had to be put aside, stuffed somewhere deep into the furthest corner of his mind never to be taken out and examined again in the light of day. His work was his name. His missions were his new personality. Nothing else mattered.

John, Jake, Jason, Stephen, Michael, Greg

He could be anyone, and he could be no one. That was what mattered. That was what had always made him one of the best agents. He’d made his sacrifices and he’d given up everything he had.

John learned to make concessions a long time ago.

But making concessions can only go so far.

If he’s going to let himself watch this Neil grow and mold himself into the person he used to know, if John has to torture himself doing it, he’d like to watch from the distance, thank you very much. Doing this in the first place is masochistic enough to earn him a Martyr of the Lifetime award, without putting all of his metaphorical eggs in one basket. A basket that is going to die on his watch. Die on his command.

“Jesus, do you realize how ridiculous you’re being?” Neil exclaims, coming up to him close, intentionally robbing him of Neil-free personal space. “Why can’t you just tell me? You seem to know all about me already, can I at least get something so trivial and common as your name? So I can at least call you?”

“You can call me Jennifer, for all I care,” John says briskly, looking back down at his papers, marking the end of this conversation. His hands are shaking around the pen he’s holding.

“Okay, then, _Jennifer,_ what if _I_ care?” Neil hisses, indignant and red-faced.

“WELL, YOU SHOULDN’T!” John shouts, his hands slamming on the desk, pen flying halfway across the room. In the ringing silence that follows, he can hear Neil gulping and his own heart pounding away in his chest. Everyone is staring at him warily. This would be the first time he was witnessed to raise his voice at anyone.

After another painfully long beat, the people around them return to what they have been doing. John sits back down at the desk, only now realizing he’s sprung to his feet. Neil is staring at him with a lost, guilty expression, like a toddler caught stealing a cookie from a jar.

John sighs, collects himself.

“You shouldn’t care, Neil, not about my name, nor my age nor my favorite soccer team,” he says, trying to keep his tone light, embarrassed at his sudden inexplicable outburst. “You are on an important job here, as are all my other employees. Tenet is not about making friends. I’m disappointed you haven’t realized that by now.”

Neil keeps standing there, hands in the pockets of his oversized trousers, hair a mess. He bites at his bottom lip, and John distantly wonders if he used to do that before. For a moment he thinks Neil is going to turn and storm off, expects him to, hurt eyes and sad twist of the lips, but what comes out of Neil’s mouth is:

“So you like soccer? You know us proper English speakers call it football, right?”

John shuts his tired eyes. Maybe if he’ll keep them closed long enough, Neil will get the hint and go away.

He doesn’t. John isn’t sure what he feels about that.

***

“We are off the job, we both survived, I don’t see how that’s not a reason to get pissed!” Neil says, slamming his hand against John’s shoulder. John gives him a pointed look. “Okay, maybe not so dramatic, then. Just one drink?”

John sighs, rubs the bridge of his nose.

 _This part is a little dramatic,_ rings Neil’s voice in his head.

Stop it.

“Come on, mate!” Neil plagues him again, ignoring John’s numerous demands to not call him that.

They have never been out for drinks before. And as much as he’s been trying to avoid it, as much as he’s been trying to stay detached, Neil keeps inserting himself into his personal life like a hand of God, and John is tired and sad and maybe a little bit lonely.

“I’m your boss, not your mate. Don’t call me that,” is what he says instead, but his body unwinds itself, and, of course, Neil notices. Neil notices everything.

“Give me your name, and I won’t,” Neil says immediately, but there’s a lot more humour in it now and a lot less offense. John believes Neil has resigned himself to joking about it nowadays, as long as nothing else would give him what he wanted anyways.

“Give me a drink and I won’t fire you,” he grumbles good-naturedly. Neil glows with delight.

“Do I finally get to know what your poison is?” He says with a grin so wide, you’d think he was getting a customized gift from John instead of some useless bit of personal trivia.

“Whiskey, neat,” he says, unable to stop himself from smiling back.

“Kind of boring, but, hey, no judgment here,” Neil says with a surprised look in his face.

“Why, what did you think I’d drink?” John can’t help wondering. He scans the bar’s drink menu and cringes at the shot labels. “Something like ‘Cowboy’s nipple’? Or, maybe, the mysterious ‘Flaming asshole’?”

“Nah, I was expecting something more along the line of baby tears or virgin blood, going by the extraordinary state of your grumpiness today,” Neil says with a cheeky grin, so wide that his dimples are showing. “And hey, a flaming asshole doesn’t sound too bad after the kind of mission we’ve been having this past week”

Chuckling, John takes his whiskey the bartender sets in front of him. There’s liquid warmth spreading all over his body, from his chest to the tips of his fingers. Odd, he hasn’t even had a sip of alcohol left.

“It wasn’t that bad, come on, Neil,” he says, finally drinking from his glass. The whiskey is nice. The bar they’re sitting at is also quite nice. John generally just feels nice all over.

“Let me say, I’d rather a flaming asshole than go through the shit we had to deal with in Saint-Petersburg again,” Neil says, raising his glass of vodka tonic.

“Well, here’s to your asshole sufficiently flaming, then, because Saint-Petersburg was just for starters,” he says, and Neil laughs and clinks his glass against John’s. John orders another drink, his body already pleasantly tingling. How long has it been since he had any alcohol in his system?

“I really like their shots menu,” Neil comments, looking through the labels himself. “We must do shots next! How is every other pub in Amsterdam this creative?”

“They do have lots of means to boost up their creativity here,” John says, and Neil’s face lights up.

“Mate, we’ve _got_ to go to a coffee shop next!” He exclaims in delight, and John is torn between snapping at the ‘mate’ calling and expressing his horror at the idea of getting high the day before the job.

“I know all about that time you went to one with Ives, and how you ended up in Vondelpark with no pants at four in the morning,” he says with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, that trip with Ives was boring,” Neil agrees easily, and before John has time to wonder what’s the idea of a ‘fun’ trip was for Neil, he adds, “Ives is too serious.”

“Oh, as opposed to me being a merry bundle of giggles?”

“Exactly,” Neil smirks mischievously. “You don’t fool me, mate. I see right through your professional ex-CIA death-glare exterior into your crazy reckless Hangover-part-one self.”

John is surprised into laughing. “And you reckon you can unlock the Hangover part by getting me both high and drunk?”

“Well, that is generally how one would get around to that, as a rule, yes,” Neil says, gulping down his drink. “Your being the head of a top-secret international organization running all across the fabric of time doesn’t make you an exception, I’m afraid.”

“And I’m afraid,” John says, some forgotten boyish feeling of excitement at the challenge and something forbidden, rising within him, “you might not be able to hold the amount of liquor enough to see it through.”

“Now _that’s_ what I’m talking about!” Neil woos, slapping him on the shoulder again. “And it’s only taken about three years for you to relax, aren’t you a real merry fellow”

John’s whiskey turns into a lump in his throat. He wants to say he can’t believe it’s been three years already, because has it, really?! He wants to say that Neil doesn’t know anything about him, because he doesn’t, and he wants to say how terrifying it can get - that feeling of being crowded too tightly inside his own mind, policing two-three-five-ten timelines at a time, double-checking, triple-checking, never giving up control –

He ends up saying nothing, because Neil is smiling so tenderly at him, eyes twinkling with mirth and corners creaking with laugh lines, and how long has this Neil had laugh lines, he is too young by far, and damn isn’t he just lovely and charming and funny and so dear and endlessly loyal, and John is suddenly suffocating with this painful-raw-wrecked emotion, because if Neil knew, if Neil understood, he would hate him, truly hate him for what John has gotten him into, for what John _will_ get him into, and if Neil wouldn’t hate him – he bloody well _should_

“Hey, mate, come on, what’s wrong?” Neil is saying, face scrunched up in a worried frown, and his hands are still on John’s shoulders, and he is still looking at John like at some kind of godlike deity, like at something magical and wondrous and awe-inspiring

Because Neil doesn’t _know_

_For me this is the end of a beautiful friendship_

He never got to bury his Neil.

“Just breathe, mate, please, come on, breathe with me,” Neil is saying frantically, but John is not focusing on that. He’s focusing on the part that for the first time just now he’s realized that this Neil, the _new_ Neil is going to fucking die, too, because there’s no _this_ Neil and _that_ Neil, not really, not anymore. And he’s gone through the ordeal one time already, but what the fuck is he doing getting all cozy with the guy he’s going to have to watch die, _again._ What the fuck is wrong with him, why would he do that to himself, and why would he do that to Neil –

_Who hired you? You did_

Stop it, just stop it!

“There you go, okay, good job,” Neil is saying in rapid whispers and hisses. His hands are holding John’s forearms in a steel grip. John gets his breathing under control, looks up to meet Neil’s eyes. Neil looks _raw_.

“I’m alright,” John says, rubbing at his eyes. “I’m alright.”

Neil is frowning, and his face is so close, John can see his long eyelashes trembling. “Sure,” Neil says, “Right as rain. Any chance you want to talk about this?”

In lieu of answering, John downs the rest of his drink. His breathing evens out.

“Silly me,” Neil mutters under his breath, disappointment lashing out in his shallow breathing. He looks more wrecked than John feels. Neil takes his hands off him, at last, and there are warm tingling spots on his skin, where Neil’s fingers used to be seconds ago.

They don’t go to the coffee shop, and they don’t do the shots. They end up cutting the night short, and as John undresses in his dark empty hotel room, fighting the nauseating mix of relief and disappointment, he thinks, stupidly, uselessly, _there’s still more time._

What a load of bullshit, that is.

For someone commanding time, he sure as hell doesn’t have any. He’ll never have _enough._

Like everything powerful, time is weapon. Weapon working against him with each tick and every fucking tock.

But that’s inevitable, isn’t it? Cosmic power, predetermined timeline, sacrificing things and so on and so fucking forth.

John learnt to make concessions a long time ago.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part is from Neil's POV. 'Mate' is what Neil chooses to call the Protagonist for a lack of an actual name to refer to him by.   
> Also, thanks to anyone who's left their comment, it means the world to me!  
> Enjoy reading and try to not choke on all the angst in this story.

2.

“May contain nuts,” Neil reads, squinting at the ridiculously tiny letters at the wrapper of his chocolate bar. He sighs, “Blimey! Here, mate, you want it?” He holds the bar out to his boss, brushing his forearm in the process. His fingers tingle.

“What are you, allergic?” Mate says, narrowing his eyes at him. “I never knew that.”

“Haven’t gone through my medical records yet?” Neil asks him, raising his eyebrows. “I’m hurt.”

“What are you talking about,” Mate says dismissively, looking away and down at the proffered candy bar. He seems to be having a silent debate on whether or not he should indulge himself and then shrugs and takes it. “I don’t even know your date of birth.”

And Neil knows better now, he knows fucking better than to take it personally, than to take offense. It might not even be true, most likely isn’t true – Neil knows that Mate keeps rather close tabs on everyone he chooses to employ, and yet it doesn’t stop the disappointment and rejection from spreading down his stomach.

Mate takes a bite of the chocolate bar. “Mmm, that’s nice,” he says teasingly. “And I don’t even taste any nuts at all.”

“Well, give it back, then,” Neil says going for the bar, but Mate gracefully steps out of his reach. There’s a small smile on his face, seemingly reserved exclusively for Neil, and how can Neil stay offended when he has to look at _this_?

“Nah, we don’t want you taking a bite and dying an undignified death,” Mate says. “Aren’t they supposed to state for sure if there’re any nuts in them?”

“They do, sometimes. Other times it’s just a ridiculous warning like this.”

“Ah,” Mate says thoughtfully, looking up at Neil. “So this is a kind of… Schrodinger’s candy for you?”

Neil is surprised into laughing. God, this man is amazing.

“Aren’t you a physics expert?” He grins.

“Your constant babbling about theories and hypotheses must be rubbing off on me,” Mate says and smiles at him warmly, the light of the late afternoon sun dancing in his eyes.

And Neil feels dizzy then, with this smile directed at him, like Mate knows something true, something deeply profound, something no one else is privy to. He might try his best to keep his distance, to stay detached and separate, but Neil is not an idiot. He sees right through the wall Mate’s built around himself, has poked a million holes here and there until it’s started crumbling around him, one piece at a time.

Neil has never really learnt to let go. Never let a niggling thought stay in the back of his mind, has always pulled it out to the light of day. Never allowed for a puzzle to go unsolved, even if took all of his time and energy to solve. Never learnt to leave it bloody well alone.

The man fascinates him, deeply and completely, like the most complex mathematical equations never managed to. But that was inevitable, wasn’t it? They are in the business of commanding time itself, and at the heart of it all is this taciturn wonderful man with lots and lots of layers and mystery wrapped around him like impenetrable armour. Neil enjoys breaking it down, pealing those layers off of him, getting to the middle of it all.

Neil never learnt to leave it alone.

“Yes, that candy is simultaneously a poison and a simple candy to me,” Neil says, shrugging. “And until I try it, I exist in both states of life and death at the same time. But then, you’ll have to put me in a box, too, if you want to go by the book.”

There must have been something in what he’s said, because Mate’s face crumbles. Neil has no idea what, and his heart speeds up a beat.

“In a parallel world’s theory, we can’t know the relationship between consciousness and multiple realities,” Mate mutters distantly, like he’s remembering something. “A friend told me.”

More than a little surprised, Neil almost misses his step. Something sticky and stinging surges up in him, and belatedly, he realizes it’s jealousy.

It’s been _years_ since he’s known the man. Years of Neil looking up to him, hanging onto his every word, afraid to miss a detail here or a sign there, years of building this one-sided relationship from the rumbles of silence, reluctance and detachment. Years of him calling the man _Mate_ in the privacy of his own mind for the sole purpose of having anything to refer to him at all. It’s been years, and Neil still doesn’t even know the man’s bloody _name._

And it’s not like Neil doesn’t have friends – he does, or, at least, he hopes so. He does that sometimes, being an overly optimistic bloke that he is – sees friends where there’re nothing but distant acquaintances, sees kindness where’s politeness, sees relationships where there’s professional courtesies. Neil is not socially awkward, per se, rather than he’s just a _social moron_ , considering he was nose-deep in mathematics and chemistry and physics, while his peers were off having a different kind of fun: learning to drink and get high and have sex and interact with each other. And Neil sort of missed out, and he’s never quite got the hang of it afterwards, not really – reading a situation wrong from time to time, misinterpreting people’s emotions, motivations, words.

His insides painfully twisting, he thinks he might have done just that yet again. Because for all intents and purposes, he considers the man his friend and has been hoping the feeling’s mutual, if only on the basis of deluding himself that the way Mate is around him simply means he has no other friends but Neil to go by. And he’s never seen or heard about anyone Mate might consider close to him, not for the lack of snooping and bribing.

But he has obviously been wrong. Maybe the man is this way around him simply because it’s the way he wants to be around him. And in his personal, Neil-free time he can go be his real self with his real friends. Somehow, the thought is piercing in its simple cruel truth.

“No we can’t,” he says for the sake of saying anything, and his voice comes out scratchy and gravelly. He clears his throat, tries again. “The candy may or may not contain nuts, and I may or may not die of allergies from eating it. When we open the metaphorical box, there’d be multiple realities split from the moment on, and in at least some of them, I’d be dead.”

Mate pierces him with look so intent, he feels goosebumps going down his arms. He seldom gets such complete undivided attention from the man, the sharp focus of his stare doing something to Neil’s insides.

“But not in others,” he says in a strange tone, and if Neil didn’t know better he’d think there was a pleading note in his voice, as though he was hoping for Neil to agree with him.

“No, I’d like to stay alive in at least one of those, thanks,” he says, suddenly feeling a bit surreal about this conversation.

“But how do we know we’d end up in the right one?” Mate presses on, and there’s definitely something desperate there now.

“We don’t. Because there’s no right or wrong ones. I mean, if we’re really talking about the multiple realities concept,” he says, but he can already see he’s lost the man’s attention. Mate’s eyes are glassy and he looks shocked and awestruck like he’s suddenly realized something important and profound, like an Oracle has whispered the secrets of the universe in his ear. “But it’s not what we are _really_ talking about, is it?”

But Mate only shakes his head a bit, as if clearing his head, and there’s something new in his gaze when he looks back at Neil, something different, something almost… tender.

“Ignorance is our ammunition,” is all he says before turning and walking off, leaving Neil shaky and weirdly longing and uncertain of this sudden change, the subtle shift he’s just witnessed. He has no idea what this was about, and he needs to know, he has to know even if it kills him.

“It’s in June,” he calls after the man, sprinting to catch up. “My birthday. June 11th. Just so you know.”

“Don’t expect any presents,” is all he gets.

Neil never learnt to leave it bloody well alone.

***

Neil wonders, maybe too often, what’s made the man the way he is. A lifetime of correcting mistakes, making things right, making sure someone else gets to live their life, while he’s putting his own down at the altar? But that’s not it, that doesn’t make him who he is. There’s more to it, surely. There’s too much regret, too much pain, so Neil is thinking – a wife? A kid? Must have been something bad to turn him into _this_. Someone must have gone and he stayed, with all his chilling self-control and his longing eyes and his deeply buried regrets and what-ifs.

Neil’s seen how that could turn out, in those early months, when Mate was still too raw, too frenzied to notice what he was doing to Neil, when he’d refuse Neil’s company altogether only to walk into the nearest pub and drink himself half to death. Neil thought about it a lot then, tried to guess and theorize like a good mathematician that he is – what could have happened that turned a person into this?

Back then, he used to think about the world in much simpler terms. In his head, he’d refer to Mate as ‘the bloke’ and then ‘the boss’ and finally ‘the friend’. ‘Mate’ formed a while later, when Neil realized that how he feels around the man – safe, warm, oddly familiar, as if he’d known the guy his entire life. And you don’t get that with just anyone, not without years of guessing, of poking through the armour and the wall, without years of assuming and presuming, pieces of yourself cut away here and there with sharp precision, without trying and failing and being wrong over and over. You don’t get that kind of absolute trust, when words are obsolete and a mere glance would convey myriads of thoughts, ideas, emotions. The fundamental trust Neil has for the guy has become something else, as if a being of its own, and even if Neil isn’t sure about anything in his life anymore, uncertain about anything he’s even known about the entire mechanism of the universe, he still has this. And for a while, it was enough.

But then, stupidly and belatedly, Neil realizes he is in love with the guy. Fool that he is, he hasn’t been paying attention to the tenderness and longing and yearning, festering inside him like an untreated wound, bleeding out of him with every desperate look he sends the guy, every impulsive word coming out of his mouth. In his fantasies, being in love very much resembled scenes he’d once seen in romcoms a lifetime ago – tears and angst and confessions in the rain and grand romantic gestures. In reality, the feeling creeps up to him much quieter and stealthier than he could’ve imagined. He wants to slap himself on the forehead, as he finally realizes what it’s been this whole time. He is a proper social moron, indeed.

And just like that, mere trust is not enough anymore.

***

His body is tense and wound tightly in on itself, when they finally find themselves at an empty parking lot of a large Tesco in a tiny town in Ireland. It’s after midnight and there’s no one around for miles, probably, except for the two of them. Neil exhales a long shaky breath, his heart racing from the sprint he’s just had and the adrenaline oozing out.

“Guns?” Mate asks him.

“The drop’s under the bins.”

“Money?”

“It’s all there,” Neil rasps out. He leans against the stray shopping trolley left unattended in the middle of the parking space and catches his breath. They seem to have lucked out, but only barely. Neil wipes the sweat off his forehead, unbuttons his sweat-soaked tweed jacket. His partner looks much more composed than him, giving Neil a strange look. Neil turns away.

“How much time left?”

“Two hours, eleven minutes,” Neil manages to say, then slips all the way down to the sit at the curb. He feels his insides twisting. “Just wait it out here.”

Mate doesn’t say anything to that, but Neil is too frenzied and too frail to turn and look up at him. He doesn’t want to know what he’s going to see once he does.

Minutes pass in complete silence, except for a rare distant car driving by and Neil’s own ragged breathing. He shuts his eyes, tries to will his galloping heart to slow down, sits on his hands so they’d stop shaking.

“You want to talk about it?” he hears then, quiet but steady.

“No,” he says. _Yes, please,_ he thinks, _I seem to have lost another piece of me,_ but it’s not something a person would say in a situation like this, and so he doesn’t. But then, he can only judge by the movies he’s seen and the books he’s read, so he could be wrong. It’s not like he’s experienced such things before, and making social calls like this has never been his strong suit. He knows he should probably say something, anything, to break the woolen silence around them, but there’s not enough air suddenly, and he can’t breathe –

“Neil!” Sharp, like a bullet chambered. “Neil!”

He realizes he’s choking on air, a huge lump of bile stuck in his throat. He flails, arms flying around, panicked, and looks up at Mate, looming over him, until the man’s face is right in front of his, his hands gripping Neil’s shoulders.

“Come on, mate, breathe,” he is saying, and Neil experiences a weird sense of deja-vu. “You’re alright, Neil, come on. Just breathe.”

Slowly, the world around him stops moving in on him, and his lungs are able to expand. The lump in his throat dissolves. His hands are squeezing Mate’s forearms, and they’re sitting like that, crouching on the ground in this odd almost-embrace, so close Neil can feel the heat radiating from the other man like electromagnetic waves.

“It’s okay,” Mate is whispering, and his face is as open as Neil’s never seen it before. “It’s okay, it’s okay”

“ _It’s not_ ,” Neil rasps out, and his voice comes out a broken little sound. Something wet is running down his cheeks, and, belatedly, he realizes he’s crying. He shuts his burning eyes, drops his head until he’s sure the man can’t see his face.

“It will be, though,” Mate whispers, and his hand is patting Neil’s shoulder in calming little circles.

“Will it?” Neil rasps out, and he feels like a lost child, seeking solace from a parent.

“It has to be,” Mate says, and regret bleeds out in his voice. “Otherwise, you’ve chosen the wrong profession.”

He’s right, of course. He’s almost always right, damn him.

Neil knew from the start what he was signing up for, and no one’s ever tried to make it secret from him. Neil’s always known he will have to get his hands dirty, has just lucked out of it during all this time. And then, somehow, has managed to forget what business he’s involved with, made himself misunderstand what ‘tying up loose ends’ really meant.

“It may be your first, but it certainly won’t be your last. So you better come to terms with it now,” the man says darkly, getting up to his feet and letting go of him at last. Immediately, Neil feels cold and lost without the contact. He almost reaches out, desperate to grab onto the man’s shirt, the man’s jacket – anything he could get his hands on – like a pathetic mess that he is, but Mate has already walked off somewhere out of sight. Terrified, Neil searches the empty parking lot frantically, until his eyes find the man at the vending machine near the Tesco entrance. Neil hears the sound of coins dinging and then something being pulled out of the machine.

Then Mate is back there with him, offering him something in his outstretched arm, eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“Here, have some. And it doesn’t contain nuts, I checked.”

So Neal eats Skittles from the vending machine, pack of candy wasted to fill his unsettled stomach. It keeps rumbling, uneasy, after he’s eaten. Mate sits down on the curb next to him, radiating warmth and safety and comfort, like an favourite woolen blanket gone soft with age, and Neil wants, and wants, and wants.

Mate moves closer then, until their shoulders are touching, and wraps his arm around Neil. It’s almost too much, and his brain goes into overload, after years of rare stolen touches, of accidental fingers brushing, to feel something as monumental, as cosmic as this comforting, intimate embrace.

“You cold?” Mate whispers, his hot breath tickling Neal’s ear. He’s shivering, and he’s not sure if it’s due to his body coming down off adrenaline or to the hands of the man he loves touching his body. He breathes out a non-committal _mmhhm_ , head rolling onto the man’s shoulder, and Mate sighs and wraps his arm even tighter around him, pulls him closer. Distantly, he thinks he’s never felt so miserable and so ecstatic at the same time in his life.

He imagines saying _I’m losing pieces of myself_ and _I can’t do this_ and _I don’t think I’m the same person anymore_ and _I love you_ and simply _Darling,_ but it’s a useless exercise imagining things he cannot and would not do, and so he just presses closer yet. This will not last, he knows it won’t, and when the two hours and eleven minutes run out, they’ll go back to maintaining personal space, and they’ll never speak of this again. Maybe avoid each other for a respectable amount of time, for good measure. Good thing they have all the time in world.

Silence and darkness like a glass dome around them, Neil enjoys the good thing, while it lasts.

When his wristwatch rings in alarm, they unglue themselves, get up and move on.

 _There’s time_ , Neil thinks foolishly, helplessly. He’s got all the time in the world.

***

“Hey, you’ve known him for a long time,” Neil says to Ives in lieu of greeting one sunny Tuesday, coming up to him as the bloke is reassembling his Kalashnikov. Ives raises his eyebrows at him.

“Hey Neil, I’m doing great, thanks for asking, and you?”

“Just fabulous,” Neil says, impatient and nervous. “Don’t deflect.”

“Real subtle there, Neil,” Ives says with a smirk. “I wonder who you are talking about.”

“Come on, Ives, just tell me,” Neil pushes, aware of how pathetic he is being. Not that he’s naïve enough to expect Ives to give him any legit intel, anything at all, really, that Neil hasn’t already dug up himself or pried into during his countless nights out with Mate. And yet.

“What do you want to know?”

“What’s his name?” Neil blurts out at once.

“Well that’s easy,” Ives says smugly, “It’s classified.”

“His date of birth?” Neil says, on the verge of begging.

“Let me see,” Ives puts on an exaggerated frown. “Oh yeah, _classified._ ” He gives Neil an appraising look. “But then, you already knew that, which means you’re either getting more stupid or more desperate. Which one is it, Neil?”

“Is there a third option?” Neil mutters, feeling his cheeks heating up.

“I don’t think so. But nice try. Only kidding, though – bloody horrible try, mate, I can’t believe you’re an actual international spy, you’re about as subtle as a kick in the balls.”

The sad part is, that Neil knows he’s right. What the hell did he expect, coming to Ives with this, embarrassing himself even more than the time he lost his pants in Amsterdam, because that he could at least blame on drugs and alcohol and being a twenty-something bloke goofing around; now he’s acting plain _idiotic_ , no excuses this time around.

And it’s not even as if Ives is more informed than he is, or so Neil suspects. Sure, Ives has known the man longer than he has, and they have good rapport, but Mate is not known for ever putting all of his eggs in one basket. _Knowledge divided_. The man’s too practical, too clever, too dexterous, looking at things in much grander terms than Neil is used to, thinking in spirals and helixes and zigzags, while Neil is still confined to straight lines.

“Speaking of the boss, this reminds me,” Ives says in a more serious tone. “How’s your lockpicking?”

“Why?” Neil frowns, a bit thrown by the topic change. “Has he said something to you?”

“Just asked me to tell you to work on your lockpicking skills.”

“But why?” Strange sort of hurt fills him up, and his voice raises. “And why hasn’t he told me himself?”

“Cut it out, Neil,” Ives hisses, all humour gone. He frowns at Neil as if he’s just seen him for the first time. “Stop embarrassing yourself. We’re not in fucking primary school, get a grip. He’s given you orders, not bloody suggestions.”

Sure, Neil, get a fucking grip, you pathetic wanker. And he must look awful, real bad, because Ives’ face softens, and he says: “Come on, Neil, you know how it is.”

And then: “Just let it go. Leave it.”

Yeah, right. He’s got a head full of Mate, and the worst part is – he’s too far gone to even care. Leave it, what a joke.

Neil never learnt to leave it bloody well alone.

***

In the dusk of the rising sun, Mate’s face looks especially surreal. Neil moves further into the long shadow so the upcoming sunbeams wouldn’t blind his eyes and stares at the man in front of him. The shades of pastel pink and yellow brighten Mate’s face and Neil looks, transfixed, at the long dark lashes, at the warm brown eyes reflecting the early morning sky.

“Are you listening, Neil?” Mate says, oddly quiet, as if not to disturb this fragile colourful moment frozen in time, and looks at Neil with that special little smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Neil lets out, equally quiet, as the sunbeams claim more and more of the man’s face. He has no idea what they were talking about.

Mate looks at him with an odd expression, something dark in his eyes despite the reflection of the light blue sky in them. Neil stiffens, suddenly realizing they are standing too close, too crowded together on the empty roof with an ocean of space around them. He doesn’t move away, though, too afraid to break this strange fragile moment between them, as if an undue breath will pull it apart.

“Neil…” Mate breathes out, tone almost pleading, like he gets it, like he’s experiencing the same surreal moment Neil is, like he’s trying to preserve it and break it at the same time. His eyes are especially shiny in the blinding light of the rising sun, and his voice is barely there, less than a whisper, and he looks uncertain and torn apart, as though he can’t decide between staying and disappearing with next breeze of the wind. There’s something in his eyes Neil is not capable of fully understanding – something dark and wrecked and raw, the secrets of the universe buried in the chocolate shade of brown – like he knows, he knows everything now. The sounds around them cease to exist and Neil is transfixed looking into his eyes, so full of this grand secret knowledge, and he suddenly feels like letting it all out, like opening a window wide and leaning outside and spilling everything he feels out loud for the world to hear, screaming until his lungs are raw and out of breath, until he can’t utter another word anymore, because this man gets it, this man already knows.

“I…” his eyes slide down and stop at the man’s lips, and the words get stuck in his throat. But that doesn’t matter, because Mate seems to hear them just fine anyway.

“Neil,” he says in a strange raspy voice, “ _don’t._ ”

Like a bucket of ice-cold water on a heated summer day.

“But _why_?” Neil demands, moment gone with the wind, and his voice breaks and crumbles. “ _Why not?_ ”

“Because it’s a terrible fucking idea!” Mate grumbles, and it’s not often that Neil hears him swear. He feels his own anger bubbling up inside him, rising to the surface. He takes a bold step closer to the man, hands yearning to grab a hold of his fine expensive shirt and just give him a bloody shake.

“ _Why?!”_ Neil almost yells, desperate and aching all over. “Give me one good reason!”

“For starters, you don’t know anything about me!” Mate hisses, eyes flashing.

“Well is it, maybe, because you’ve been pushing me away ever since I’ve known you?”

“You have no idea who I am,” the man snaps through gritted teeth. “It’s all in your head, Neil, you’ve always had a too rich an imagination.”

“I know everything that’s important,” Neil says and realizes it’s the absolute truth. “I know you are kind and funny when you want to be, I know you obsess over controlling things – and if you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to command a dozen time loops at once, the brilliant guy that you are; I know you like animal documentaries and hate spy movies because they’re _inaccurate_ ; that you keep your people on guard around that blonde woman and her kid – I saw the file on your desk – and you’ve worked hard on keeping her safe; I know you enjoy single malt Irish whiskey and hate tequila because it makes you broody; I know you took a bullet for me last year, I know I can trust you with my life, and I’m bloody sure you trust me with yours,” he pauses to take a breath. “Isn’t that enough?”

There’s a ringing silence, and then the man’s face shuts off.

“Not for me.”

His heart beating in his ears, adrenaline pumping through his veins, Neil can’t believe this is the end of it. He has to push, he has to know, needs to know, he can’t just leave it like that.

Neil never learnt to leave bloody well alone.

“Don’t shut me out,” and there he goes – full-on begging now. “Please.”

The trait Neil would most happily be rid of is his capacity to cling to hope up to and beyond his very last breath, to hope when his grave's halfway filled in. But he can't be rid of it and the sun is going up, and Neil knows somehow that this last rejection will be the end of him, that the next piece of him this man cuts away will be the last.

But the battle’s been lost having barely even started, and he realizes that now.

“You’re going on a mission soon,” the bloody fucker says, and he sounds angry now, like Neil’s the one rejecting him. “But before that, you need to work on a lot of things. What’s going on with you? You’ve been nothing but distractions and excuses lately!”

“It’s a nice match with your condescension and superiority,” Neil snaps, glaring back at him, righteous anger spreading in him for the second time in only so many minutes. That’s just cruel now. “You know what’s going on with me. I’ve just told you. Or, rather, you wouldn’t let me tell you.”

“We’re not talking about this,” the man growls, fists curling at his side, and how dare he be the angry one? How fucking dare he, the self-important arsehole, he doesn’t get to be mad, he doesn’t get the right – “and I think even you must realize that, deep down, maybe on subconscious level, and it comes out as compromising your work.”

 _What?_ Is he pulling these words out of his arse? He runs a shaking hand through his already messy hair.

“Maybe on your subconscious level you’re just afraid you’re gonna die alone and it just comes out as you being a pretentious twat!”

They stand there fuming, alone on the roof, and the sun is almost all the way up in the sky now, as Neil’s heart twists a aches and breaks.

“We all die alone,” the man says with a note of finality. And that’s the end of that. “Now, about the mission…”

And as he tries to listen, hot tears prickling at his eyes, he thinks _I shouldn’t have pushed, I should’ve let it go, should’ve left it alone._

Too bad Neil’s never learnt to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, your comments are much appreciated!!  
> Cheers!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terribly sorry for the delay! Final part here, and I'm really glad to have this story finished and off my shoulders. One can only watch Tenet so many times within a week...  
> Enjoy!




They don’t mention the conversation on the roof again, instead tiptoeing around each other with uncomfortable pent-up tension and irritation. This, John thinks, is exactly why he didn’t want to talk about it or mention it or even bring it up to the light of day. But Neil’s a stubborn bastard, isn’t he? He just couldn’t leave it be, like an itch he couldn’t help but scratch.

There’s a mission waiting to be accomplished that requires them to travel five days back, and John actually considers sending Neil off with someone else. But he knows it has to be him and Neil, because that is how it has _already happened_ , and he is a professional, so he swallows his annoyance and his boiling anger and gets ready to spend five days going backwards, caged in a tiny shipping container with a sulking brooding Neil.

But then, a voice reminds him in the back of his mind, this will be their last mission together. This is it.

The realization creeps up on him, just as he is checking their supplies for the last time, zipping up his gear bag. As he looks up, he sees Neil walk past him and drop on the folding chair, taking his backpack off his back.

There’s a charm with a red string hanging from the front zipper of Neil’s backpack. It’s been more than a decade since he saw it. He watches it swing back and forth, hypnotized, until Neil catches him staring and says “Alright?” in a quiet, serious tone.

John nods. There’s a lump in the back of his throat and he tries to swallow past it.

“Where did you get that?” He says, pointing at the charm.

Neil looks up at him, surprised. “Street market in Singapore, last week. Why?”

John shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut. “No reason. Just thinking you could’ve got me a souvenir, too,” he jokes half-heartedly, but Neil doesn’t smile. His eyes bore into John with focused intensity, until John is forced to turn away from him, unable to bear the scrutiny.

“I didn’t think you wanted anything from me,” Neil says in a tone that suggests he’s not talking about gifts anymore. “All you had to do was ask.”

John’s learnt to understand the structure of Neil’s thinking by now, knows how he always takes a turn somewhere in the middle, away from the topic at hand to the only subject that really matters to him. On some level, he really admires Neil’s stubbornness, his refusal to accept what he sees as a simple case of reluctance, even from a close friend. But it doesn’t make John feel any better about his inability to help, to give in, to give Neil what he wants.

He stays up late that night, feeling trapped and uneasy in this tiny cage of stuffed air and misery and cellophane, and he watches Neil toss and turn on his own bunk bed, restless. Even in his sleep, Neil looks exhausted and so much older than he did in that Oxford pub so many years ago, and John is really seeing him now. Neil got older – of course, he did – and he’s harder and broader and stronger, his face sharper, his eyes colder, more detached. He is now about the same age John was when he first met Neil in Mumbai, and isn’t that just mind-blowing, because Mumbai will happen in two weeks from now. John remembers that Neil – with his tender looks and warm smiles, loyal and capable and always at his back. John remembers taking it for granted that everything would always work out, that he could only fall so far before Neil would catch him and set him back on his feet. Nowadays, he knows for a fact that it is possible to fall and just keep falling, that people like him can’t afford a moment’s weakness, a single big mistake.

Out of nowhere, he is struck by a sudden, bleak vision of Neil alone in his cell-like cage, bleeding out on the dirty dusty floor, face hidden by a mask, blood spattered all over it. And he must look bad, because Neil sighs heavily from his lying position on the bed and says, “Come here.”

John freezes, looks at him, silently. “Please,” Neil adds, barely a whisper.

And he’s only human, after all. He can’t be expected to say no to Neil, when he asks so quietly, so hopelessly, like it pains him to get the words out.

On unsteady feet, he stumbles over to sit on the edge of Neil’s bunk bed, and Neil sighs again and grabs his forearm, pulling John down next to him. He shifts, rearranging them, until John is plastered all the way along Neil’s body, his chest to Neil’s back, his knees folding perfectly to the back of Neil’s.

John can’t remember the last time he spooned someone, if he ever did, but Neil’s warm body in his arms makes it hard to think about anything else at all.

He shouldn’t be doing this, he knows with a doubtless clarity – he knows he fucking shouldn’t. As it already is, spasms of wild longing would often strike John out of nowhere, leaving him dazed and irritable, prone to sullen fits of anger that inevitably got turned against Neil, which was completely unfair since John was the one to choose his proud solitude, this selfless sacrifice – no one made him.

And whatever it is between them is already complicated enough, without this – without Neil’s smell filling his nostrils, without small hair on the back on Neil’s neck tickling his nose, without Neil’s soft happy sigh leaving his lips in a whoosh, making John lose his fucking mind, making him want to do things with Neil, _to_ Neil, making him want to fuck Neil right there and then.

“Just go to sleep, boss,” Neil murmurs, and his hand covers John’s arm that’s resting across Neil’s middle. “You’re thinking too loudly.”

So John shuts his eyes, pulls Neil even closer still. As fuckable as Neil is, John is a professional, and this little innocent cuddling is as far as he’ll allow it to go. If they have to spend five days and nights in this cage, with no one else for company or even a slight distraction, they might as well spend the time on his terms.

Time is weapon, after all, and John never lets himself forget this. His job is to learn to use that weapon for his own benefit.

It’s not too bad, as far as rationalizations go.

All the way back to five days earlier, they spend the nights with John wrapped around Neil like an affectionate straight jacket.

This is it, he thinks watching the red charm rest against the fabric of Neil’s backback, when the guilt and apprehension and grief get too much. This is the last time he’ll ever be able to do this.

He’s still not sure if allowing this makes things easier or so, so much worse.

***

“I’ve been wondering,” Neil says the night before his final mission, as they work quietly in yet another hotel room John’s paid for, going over everything in painstaking detail. He pauses, tears his eyes away from his laptop, where he’s been arranging cargo he’ll need to use for inverting Neil back to Kiev, and looks across the room at the man, who’s sitting by the window, scratching at the day-old stubble on his chin, gazing out onto the darkening skyline. “If you were ever gonna tell me how I’ll die.”

In the silence that follows, John thinks he can hear his own heart beating, his own blood running down his veins. The car passing by outside is cacophonous, the distant sound of people arguing somewhere down the hotel hall – like sandpaper across his eardrums. Neil focuses his gaze on him, and he looks so casual, he might as well be talking about the weather forecast.

Distantly and briefly, John wonders of he should insult Neil’s intelligence by pretending to have no idea what he’s talking about.

“How long have you known?” John says just as casually, waiting for the emotional disturbance to pass. It’s getting darker in the room, or maybe his vision’s finally going bad at his old age.

Neil draws out one long breath, shuts his eyes. “I didn’t,” he says so softly, John can barely hear him. “I had my suspicions. Like, you were pretty weird about that keychain I got. And you’ve just confirmed them.”

_For me, this is the end of a beautiful friendship_

Neil knows now. Neil knows. Has he always known? Did his Neil know it was going to happen, before he hopped the helicopter that took him away?

Does it even matter now?

“Ah,” Neil says, weirdly melodically, as if talking to no one in particular. His stare is dead focused on John, and he feels uncomfortable at such careful scrutiny. “So it was I who went away, wasn’t it?”

John has no clue what he means, but then, Neil seems like he’s mostly talking to himself, like he’s having this huge realization, a moment of brightness. John can at least let him have that.

Neil stands suddenly, unstable on his feet like a drunk person, and walks over across the dark room to open the minibar fridge. He peers into it for a long time, tilting his head as if something fascinating is going on in there. Finally, he grabs a tiny duty-free sized bottle of vodka and straightens out, swaying a bit.

“Will it be painful?” He says calmly with a note of mild amusement, as if they were having this conversation about someone else.

“No,” John breathes out, and he knows that lying is standard operating procedure. That doesn’t make it any easier or any less excruciating.

“Will you be there when I… when I go?” Neil asks, quiet and raw, long shaky breath coming out with his words.

“No,” John whispers back, and his own voice sounds strange to him, a rusty croak in the darkness.

Neil’s face shatters and crumbles into pieces. Suddenly, he looks just like the young innocent bloke John met at the bar in Oxford all those years ago. Hands shaking with the desire to wrap around Neil in a painful bone-crushing embrace, John sticks them in his pant pockets, unsure if his yearning to comfort Neil is really a desire to comfort himself. Somehow, he feels like an oncologist having just told a patient he has an advanced, stage-four carcinoma. Like he has just informed the patient he is going to die soon, and he will have to do it alone.

 _Maybe on your subconscious level you’re just afraid you’re gonna die alone,_ Neil’s voice yells in his mind, and he shuts his stinging eyes and shakes his head to clear it out. But it’s always been Neil who was going to die alone, in the middle of nowhere and _nowhen,_ gone with a tick of a clock, his acts of true selflessness never acknowledged by humanity he’d saved.

Human life is short and painful and goes out without much fanfare. John’s always known how this was going to happen. It’s the bitter tragic truth, and he’s not going to pretend otherwise.

Neil opens the tiny vodka bottle and downs the whole thing in one long sip. “How long do I have?” he croaks out, voice small and raspy.

“Till the end of this mission,” John says, the invisible haze of stale grief and chronic bewilderment thickening the air, causing them both to talk more softly and more tentatively than they normally would. Neil’s hands are shaking, knuckles white around the plastic little bottle, and John can feel his own heart pounding against his ribcage.

There are a few beats of silence, in which Neil walks to the sofa and drops himself down with a little _oof._ John switches on the floor lamp, lets his eyes adjust to the new, almost foreign brightness, and goes for the armchair across the coffee table.

“How long have you known me then?” Neil keeps asking in this strange soft voice, like they’re having an interview Q&A session, like his own personal world isn’t crumbling to pieces around him, invisible to John.

“For the same amount of time you’ve known me,” John answers, going for complete brutal honesty. “Plus twenty-four days.”

Neil pretty much does a double take. He stares at John as if he’s never seen him before.

“That’s it?” he says incredulously with a deep frown. “I thought…” but he cuts himself off, shaking his head in angry bewilderment.

“What?”

“I’ve always figured you’d lost someone,” Neil says, putting his wildly shaking hands on his lap. John watches his thin long fingers spasm and tremble. “Someone who’d obviously meant a lot to you,” he pauses, pierces John with an intense look. “Was it me? Did I mean that much to you?”

Feeling his insides twisting and trembling, John utters “You’ve always meant the world to me, Neil.” He is not lying, and Neil’s face breaks again.

“But then, you had only known me for about three weeks! That’s nothing, I’ve left milk in my fridge for longer than that! You couldn’t have known me at all!”

“I knew everything that was important,” John says, echoing Neil’s words from that conversation on the roof. Neil throws him another accusing look, full of pent-up hurt and rejection. “You’ve always had this way about you that just made me trust you. You’ll see. When you get to meet the younger version of me. He’ll trust you as if you were a long-lost brother, _you’ll see_.”

But Neil is shaking his head, eyes screwed shut, blond hair falling over his eyes. He looks exhausted and wrecked and hurt, and John doesn’t know how to fix this, how to salvage this into something they can move on from.

“Is that why you wouldn’t…?” Neil starts, but his voice cracks. He tries again, “Is that why you don’t want me?”

And just like that, John is _raging_. How fucking stupid can Neil be, thinking John doesn’t want him? How much of a fucking moron does he have to be to not see how this entire situation is crushing him, absolutely fucking destroying him? How losing Neil once was horrible enough when he barely knew the man, but loosing this Neil – the one he’s spent years and years training, moulding into the greatest agent ever, getting to know, to _love_ – is unimaginable? How the fuck does Neil not see that John can’t even express it, can’t even begin to try to put into words this feeling – this cosmic tragedy of an idea of losing Neil – _forever_ this time. How can he not grasp the scale of John’s grand sacrifice for the greater-good, like an obedient soldier that he is? For someone so brilliant, Neil really is a fucking idiot.

“Why do you think?” he snaps and takes vengeful pleasure in seeing Neil flinch as if he’s been slapped. “Our entire relationship has an expiration date. Your _life_ has an expiration date and it’s burnt in my mind so deep, I see the numbers every time I look at you! _Why wouldn’t I,_ ” he repeats, mockingly, shaking his head at the fucking audacity. “Would _you_?”

“YES!” Neil yells, and the contrast with his earlier soft tone is so strong, John is almost knocked out of his chair with the force of it. Neil jumps up to his feet and paces in front of the sofa with a frenzied look “ _Of course,_ I bloody would _,_ you _coward! Don’t you see?!_ We could’ve had so much more time! _Years!_ You _robbed_ me of those!! And why, because you’d feel _sad_ when I’m gone?!”

“You have no idea what you’re talking about!” John hisses, voice getting proportionally quieter as Neil’s keeps rising and rising in decibels. Fuck Neil for calling him a coward! His heart is in his throat and he thinks, this is what having a heart attack would probable feel like. “You’re not the one getting to stay alone with all the memories and grief!”

“Because I have the _privilege of dying_?” Neil screams, spit flying out of his mouth, and he looks absolutely wild and deranged. “While you get to live on, trying to avoid being hurt for the rest of your life?!”

“As opposed to you, ready to dive head-first into a doomed relationship like a careless naïve idiot out of touch with reality!”

“ _You’re_ the idiot!” Neil yells, eyes huge and wild, and he knocks the coffee table out of his way as he takes a step closer. It lands with a loud crash, but John barely hears it. Neil’s face is inches away from his, and he can see the pulsing angry vein popping on his forehead. “I’m the one who has to go off and _die_ , while you’re pretending how hard it is to get to live on!”

“Dying is easy! _Living_ is fucking hard!” John finally yells, marking this the second time he’s ever raised his voice at Neil.

And he’s not saying it to just make a point. He _has_ died before. He might’ve not known he’d end up surviving, but he took the pill anyway. He made his choice and he went down for what he believed was the right thing. He made a decision to die, and it wasn’t even in the top three hardest decisions of his life.

Dying was not hard. Deciding to die for the greater good, while also doing the noble thing – even less so. Just another concession in a long line of those. John learnt to make concessions a long time ago.

On the other hand, there’s living the rest of his life with a Neil-shaped hole in his chest, expanding and eating away at him until there’s nothing more left. He’s managed just fine so far, and he will in the future, too. As long as he doesn’t get too involved. It’s not going to be much longer, anyway, now.

And just look at them. Neil – a cluttered saga of questionable decisions and emotional melodrama; John – straitlaced and reliable, up to the point where he’s asked to make himself even a little vulnerable.

Maybe what Neil described as “a beautiful friendship” was a joke born sometime in Neil’s frenzied mind, with the punchline lost somewhere along the countless timelines. Or maybe it was just Neil being bitter and sad. Or just him telling John what Neil wanted so much to be true. Maybe Neil wasn’t so bad at making concessions, either, after all.

But Neil’s face is inexplicably close to him, now, and John is rapidly losing his train of thought. In the dim light of the lamp he sees Neil’s eyelashes flutter, his Adam’s apple bobbing frantically, his nostrils flaring. He smells the feint, day-old scent of Neil’s perfume, musky and irresistible, and he thinks he hears the pounding of Neil’s heart against his chest, or it might just be his own –

Neil kisses him, then, and it’s not like he can think about anything else, though, as Neil’s tongue, soft and wet, enters his mouth.

Neil kisses like he does everything else he puts his mind into – with sharp precision and inexplicable brilliance, and John is a coward—he freezes, forgets to hit the brakes – a general feeling of sensory overload brought on by the sudden onslaught of Neil’s lips and Neil’s hands and Neil’s taste. But then his hands are roaming all over Neil’s body, getting under Neil’s ever so rumpled shirt, one button falling open at a time, impatient and anxious with the pent-up tension he’s been carrying around for the past decade.

“Please,” Neil is muttering, hot wet breath against his lips, “ _Please_ ”

John is only human after all.

He unglues himself from Neil’s half naked body, pushes him back down on the sofa, opens his eyes he had no idea he’d shut – to look at Neil, to really take in the improbable sight in front of him. Neil is sprawled over the sofa, lips red and swollen, hair a proper mess, unbuttoned shirt hanging open off his shoulders. And god, if it’s not a turn-on – this Neil, so trusting and open, looking at him with such tenderness and desperation and indisputable love that a flood of unspeakable sentiments rise into John’s throat.

He rips the shirt off Neil’s shoulders, bends over him to mouth at his chest, lick at his pale pink nipples, and Neil lets out a sound that’s between a moan and a whimper, and John thinks he’s going to come right then and there.

“Come on,” Neil is panting, his shaky hands trying to grip John everywhere at once, “come on, please, I need—I want—”

“Yes, yes,” John is saying, feverishly, having no idea what Neil is asking him or what he’s agreeing to. But his whole body is burning up, waves of heat coming off him that Neil must be able to feel, and he pulls off Neil’s pants along with his underwear in one quick move. Neil’s cock is rock hard and red, and John’s hand wraps around it on its own accord. As soon as it touches him, Neil _wails._

 _“Please, fuck, oh god, please, please,”_ he babbles, sending jolts of painful arousal straight to John’s dick. He sounds pained, and John doesn’t know if he can even handle this anymore, the overwhelming desperation and neediness mixed with resignation and stale grief. But Neil is spread out in front of him, trusting and nearly sobbing and utterly undone, so he can’t imagine doing anything else but bending over and wrapping his lips around his cock.

“ _Oh Christ, oh god_ ,” Neil moans brokenly, biting on his own knuckles and writhing around underneath John, until he grabs Neil’s hips to hold him down. Neil’s cock is hot and heavy on his tongue, and John realizes then – that this will never be enough. He will never get enough of this.

 _Neil,_ he moans around his cock, and Neil whines and shakes and keens, until Neil’s hands are pulling him off and up.

“No, no, no, please, love, come on, I want you to fuck me, please,” Neil begs, feverish and frenzied, sweaty hear falling over his forehead. He looks completely and utterly debauched, and John can’t quite believe that _he_ made him like that, _he_ turned Neil into this mess.

In his rush to comply, he doesn’t even bother taking his own clothes off. This is the first and the last time they’ll ever get the chance to do this, and they both realize it all too well. John doesn’t give a fuck about his suit now, or the pants he rips down with enough force to rip the fabric, or anything else at all, really – when he shifts Neil and plasters himself on top of him, their legs entangling.

He fucks Neil without holding back – not that he’d be able to even if he wanted – and Neil is soft and pliant underneath him, each thrust making him cry out, hips bucking up helplessly, spine arching.

“I love you,” Neil chokes out as his eyes find John’s, “I love you—whatever happens – I want you to know that—”

Fuck, John thinks distantly, feeling something hot and wet prickling at the corners of his eyes. He needs Neil to shut up, because any more words – and he’ll be done, he’ll be gone, he’ll be just out of it completely. He leans down, laps at one of Neil’s nipples, sucks at the other one, and then kisses Neil on the mouth to shut him the fuck up, because what’s the point in all these useless words, what’s the point if tomorrow their whole relationship will cease to exist?

“Christ, I love you,” Neil is panting again, as soon as they break for air. It’s like a dam has been open and all of his bottled confessions come spilling out. “I know you couldn’t save me – and I love you anyway—”

“ _Neil,”_ he groans, unable to fucking help himself as he hides his burning face in the crook of Neil’s neck. “ _Neil_.”

He feels Neil’s chest hair against his nose, breathes in the musky odor coming from the man. Kisses Neil’s fluttering eyelids, kisses his burning cheeks, the tip of his nose. His thrusts are much more aggressive now, much more unhinged, and with a final litany of ‘pleasepleaseplease’ Neil comes with bull body spasm, and John follows only moments after. 

“I told you we should’ve done this sooner,” Neil pants, when the sound of their ragged breathing slows and fades out, but there’s a sweet look on his face – affection and resignation and sadness all mixed together.

John tries to smile, but only gets halfway there. He unglues their sticky sweaty bodies and sits on the edge of the sofa, Neil’s long legs trapped against the back cushions.

“No, wait, come back,” Neil says with a smile, but there’s an unmistakable note of panic in his voice. He grips John’s still-clothed arm as if frightened that John would vanish into thin air. “We have time still.”

_Time_

That’s true. But John is suddenly feeling oddly calm and at peace, as if by fucking Neil he’s also fucked all of his worries and regrets out of his system.

He thinks back to that day Neil talked about the nuts in his candy, babbled about theories of split realities and what not.

John wonders if that candy contained any nuts, after all. He’ll never know, and there’s’ no sufficient way to find out. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

“What are you thinking?” Neil asks in the same strange panicky voice. He still hadn’t got up, and John worries if he actually hurt him. He leans down, kisses Neil full on the mouth, but this time he makes it count, wet and unrushed and full of promises.

“Ignorance is our ammunition,” John says with a small smile, as Neil stares at him with confusion and suspicion.

Like everything powerful, time is a weapon.

And John knows how he’ll use it this time around.

***

It takes him three calendar days and a more than a month of actual time going backwards and forward around the Stalsl-12 explosion, getting everything set up. Living the days over and over again, getting everything ready, not really eating, not showering – that’s not a big issue now.

He wonders what his future-self will think about this, how he’d react to John fucking over the entire timeline (maybe?) on a purely emotional basis, but it’s a useless exercise to imagine how and why the future him would stop him (or wouldn’t) and it makes his head throb, so he gives it up. It’s strange, really, this feeling of newfound freedom, of not giving a fuck. He used to care — used to care _a lot_ — and hasn’t quite gotten used to the feeling of not caring, though he is doing his best.

And he does feel truly free as he hops through the turnstile for the nth time in only so many days – there is eighteen versions of him currently existing in the same timeline, so he has to be extra careful. The freedom of making his own unpredetermined choice is dizzying and intoxicating and more exciting than every spoiler he’s got from the future within the last decade.

He makes the razor-sharp calculations for the window of opportunity he’ll have to save Neil in between him getting shot and the whole place exploding. He gets the transport ready, gets the medics ready, even gets Ives ready – and that’s not a conversation he’d like to revisit.

This will work one out of two ways: Neil will die, or Neil will live.

The candy may or may not have contained nuts.

Neil has already died or lived. All it takes now is wait long enough to find out.

Just as he finishes his thirty-second day of making sure everything is ready to go – like a particularly torturous version of Groundhog Day – there’s Neil standing at the entrance of the abandoned warehouse John’s been doing his dirty deeds at. At the soft sound of the footsteps, John stares up at him in wonder and disbelief.

Like with any Neil out of any possible timeline, his heart aches and yearns at the sight of him.

“How the hell did you find me?” John sputters, because he made sure – he made damn well sure – to cover his tracks.

“Ah well, it's life's little mysteries, I guess,” Neil says with a wide grin, and there’s something wrong – or just something different maybe.

The Neil in front of him is haggard and tired and older than John’s ever seen him. There’s something off in the way he’s standing and holding himself – favouring his right side, as if he’s been injured recently. But the look on his face is what throws John off entirely – it’s loving and open and trusting, but without the longing, the doubts, the resignation. There’s no starving-suffering-sorrowful _something_ that made a home behind Neil’s eyes so many years ago, and John stares at his smug grin and damned dimples –

“You are—” John starts and sputters and tries again. “I—I saved you?”

“Come on now,” Neil says with a shit-eating grin, as he takes his backpack off to sit down in an old dirty chair. As he does, the golden charm on the red string swings about, catching the beam of the afternoon sun. “Don’t let it get to your head. I’ve saved you much more times, if we count the mad backwards and forwards I did in Stalsk. No need to sound so profound.”

In the decade (and more) that he’s known Neil, he’s seen many a version of the man, but usually around months – older or younger – from any given point in time, excluding their first meeting ever. This Neil, he does not recognize. This Neil must come from a future beyond the point that could’ve been possible. Unless –

Neil gets up in one swift graceful movement, crosses the distance between them and kisses him on the mouth. It’s only the second time John’s ever kissed Neil, and he’s left a bit frozen, mind reeling to catch up.

“Aww, I almost forgot how cute you were in the beginning,” Neil beams, his smile so warm John is starting to sweat underneath his shirt.

“In the beginning?”

“My beginning,” Neil says and drops back onto the chair. “You won’t have to wait long, though. You’ll love it!”

“So I—I pulled you out?” John says slowly, the words feeling foreign in his mouth.

Neil gives him a soft condescending look. “Try and keep up,” he says and then, as an afterthought, adds: “ _John_.”

John gapes.

“You know—”

“I’m really enjoying your absolute cluelessness, boss, it’s really adorable,” Neil laughs, his eyes twinkling. “And god, the way you went about keeping your name this grand top secret, I’d have thought it was something more sophisticated than _John Davies_. Perhaps, like Rasmus or Umberto—”

“ _Neil_ ,” John cuts him off, because there’s suddenly not enough oxygen in the air. He clears his throat, tries again, “Neil.”

“Sorry, love,” Neil says, casually dropping yet another word that makes John’s arms go with goosebumps and his stomach turn into hot liquid. “I only had a couple minutes anyway, thought I’d pop by – just couldn’t resist. Future You will probably have a fit when I get back.”

He gets up, just as John manages to say, “Won’t be a surprise for him, will it?”

“No,” Neil agrees with another heart-warming smile and flips his backpack onto his shoulders, “it won’t.”

“When will we—how--?” John babbles, feeling inadequate and incompetent for a hundredth time in only so many minutes.

“Now that would be telling,” Neil shakes his head and winks at him, and John must be staring because he’s never seen Neil so playful and… flirty. “But, believe it or not – you will actually learn to _tell_ me things. Like, your _thoughts_ and _feelings._ Dreams and aspirations _…_ Your boring name, even. Of your own free will. So, yes, that will be lovely – for you as it was for me, I hope.” He laughs at whatever look he must see on John’s face, “I’ll see you soon, darling. We both have a future in the past now… and _in the_ _future_ ,” he adds, before turning around and walking back to the exit.

There’s so many things John wants to say, wants to ask, but they all keep circling around in his head in way that makes him unable to say anything at all, helplessly watching Neil’s retreating form.

Just when he’s about to disappear out of sight, though, he stops and turns back around one more time. He fishes something out of his pant pocket and throws it across the room at John.

“There,” he calls, looking at John with something deep and profound in his eyes, as John catches a Curly-Wurly candy bar in mid-air. “Can’t have it – may contain nuts, I’m afraid. Don’t want to risk it.”

“I love you!” John blurts out suddenly, words coming out before he even registers them.

“I know,” Neil smiles the same familiar smile that seems to always be reserved for John only. “But please, let the other me know. _He_ doesn’t.”

And with that, he disappears behind the old cracked doors, leaving John staring at the rapidly melting candy bar in his hand. Carefully, he unwraps it, something huge and warm spreading from his heart to the tips of his fingers, something raw-sacred-earth-shattering. He takes a bite, barely registering the taste in his mouth, as he tries to process what has just happened.

He’s done it, he thinks in awe, swallowing past the sugary sweetness in his mouth. _He’s done it._

_We both have a future now_

They do. All that’s left to do now is to live it.

The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I couldn't bring myself to post this for ages, since I ended up hating the way it turned out. This story just completely ran away from me and towards a happy ending I didn't plan on. Oh well. Here's some fix-it where Neil didn't end up dead in a desert.  
> Hope you've all enjoyed this, and, as always - your comments are worth everything in the world!

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, "Cowboy's Nipple" and "Flaming Asshole" are very much real shot names in an Amsterdam shot bar. I don't remember the name of it, but it was close to a canal. But then, everything in Amsterdam is close to a canal, so go figure. Just walk into the first pub you see, though, and have some shots, if you're in Amsterdam, anyway, who cares if it's a Flaming Asshole or not.  
> Your comments are to live for!
> 
> P.S. Just remembered! It was called Chupitos shot bar, go check it out if you're ever in Amsterdam :)


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